With a decisive run to start the fourth quarter on Thursday night, the San Clemente girls basketball team had its home game against El Toro wrapped up early.

Same goes for the South Coast League title.

Jessica De Gree scored 21 points with 15 rebounds and Emma Bankson scored all nine of her points in the final period to lift the No. 10 Tritons to a 58-47 win that clinched San Clemente's second straight league crown.

"They worked really hard," said San Clemente coach Lacey Burns, whose team captured the program's first back-to-back league titles since 2009-10. "This group has really stepped up and just wanted to continue to want to make San Clemente proud and represent."

Aliso Niguel defeated Laguna Hills, 55-40, on Thursday to improve to 5-2 in league and keep its hope of sharing the league title alive, but San Clemente (14-8, 6-0 in league) can clinch league outright with a win in either of its two remaining games, Monday against Laguna Hills or Wednesday against Aliso.

San Clemente started out league with wins against Aliso Niguel and Capistrano Valley in games that were close into the fourth quarter, while also dropping some nonleague games in between. But since beating El Toro, 68-60, in the first meeting on Jan. 21, the Tritons have won every league game by double digits.

Now San Clemente is just two wins away from a second straight undefeated run through league.

It feels great (to repeat),” De Gree said. “A couple of weeks ago we were kind of down in the dumps a little bit and that was hard, but we finally got over. We beat Laguna (Hills) by 33 (Jan. 23) and that just kind of set us up. With those high spirits, we’re going to win the rest of our games in league.”

After allowing just five first-quarter points and taking control early, San Clemente led by seven at the half and by 11 heading into the fourth.

Bankson knocked down back-to-back three-pointers to grow the lead to 51-36 and De Gree hit a jumper in the key to make it 53-36 with 6:00 to play.

Bankson’s three-ball from the corner at the 5:26 mark capped an 11-4 run and gave San Clemente its biggest lead of the night, 56-38.

“We just knew we had to come out really strong in the fourth quarter to stomp their spirits because if we didn’t, they would hang around the whole time,” De Gree said.

De Gree, who is averaging 22 points and 12.4 rebounds, posted her ninth game of the season with at least 20 points and 15 boards, but also had some help with the scoring load.

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